Magento Releases Hosted, SaaS Version

The Magento platform — in my view — is one of the most robust and effective ecommerce solutions available. If, in fact, Magento has any drawbacks or weaknesses, it is that all of its features, functions, and flexibility came at the cost of a complex backend that required more than a little web development experience.

The new Magento Go is a hosted, SaaS solution that takes advantage of Magento’s features — but, perhaps, not its flexibility — and requires a merchant to have no web development or design experience.

Magento-Produced Video, Introducing Go

Advanced Product Configurations

Like the “regular” versions of Magento, Magento Go includes advanced product options ranging from simple products to configurable or bundled ones.

A configurable product, as an example, might be a t-shirt that is available in small, medium, and large and in the colors red, white, and blue. In Magento Go, this would show up as a single product with both size and color options. To anyone that has done any online shopping, this sort of configurable product might seem obvious. But many hosted or SaaS ecommerce platforms lack this feature. Magento Go makes it relatively easy.

Magento Go also allows for bundled products, like adding a game or controller to an Xbox console and selling all three at one discounted price. Again, this is an advanced product feature that a relatively small set of SaaS ecommerce providers offer.

Merchandising and Marketing

Like Magento’s Community, Professional, and Enterprise editions, Magento Go also puts emphasis on merchandising products on site and off. This is the idea of using cross promotion, coupons, or other means to encourage each customer to purchase more both now and later.

For example, Magento Go allows merchants to create all manner of coupons that can be promoted in on-site banners, on coupon and deal sites like RetailMeNot or Groupon, or via email newsletters.

Magento Go also includes a gift card feature similar to the module offered in its Enterprise edition. This particular feature is unusual among turnkey ecommerce solutions.

Ways to Engage Customers

Magento Go also includes a built-in rating and review system, product comparisons, wish lists that can be shared on social media sites, and “customer-assisted shopping,” where the merchant can interact with customers.

A Clear Path for Growth

Another, unspoken, feature of Magento Go is that it offers a relatively clear path for growth. It is not uncommon for small merchants to start with SaaS ecommerce solutions but eventually switch to a licensed ecommerce platform as they grow. With Magento Go that sort of transition should be relatively easy given the relation to the other Magento solutions.

Support

Magento Go promises 24 hour-a-day support for merchants via email or phone, depending on their plan. This, again, is an important feature for online retailers that might not be completely code-literate.

Prices

Magento Go offers four basic plans that are priced based on the number of products in the catalog and the level of support offered. The plans run $15, $25, $65, and $125 per month for 100, 500, 1,000, and 10,000 products respectively. The last two plans include telephone support.

At the moment, Magento Go is also offering a $1 million ecommerce “stimulus” fund, which will contribute $15 per month to a merchant’s bill until the $1 million runs out.

This means that while the funds are available, Magento Go’s basic plan is free.

The View of a Competitor

There are many hosted platforms besides Magento Go, of course. One of the leading alternatives is Shopify, an Ottawa, Canada-based hosted platform with more than 12,500 active users. The company was founded in 2006. Its chief platform officer is Harley Finkelstein, who spoke with us about Magento Go.

“Magento is a decent platform,” said Finkelstein. “But for the non-hosted versions, merchants almost always need a developer to get it going. Magento Go, the hosted version, is better than the ‘regular’ versions of Magento, but it is certainly not plug-and-play, like Shopify.

Finkelstein continued, “Getting set up on Magento Go does not seem to be a short, easy process, and many entry-level merchants will still need to partner with a developer to get Go up and running. In that respect, the barrier to entry — for many smaller merchants — still exists with Magento Go. But, compared to the regular versions of Magento, it seems like a first step in the right direction.”

Summing Up

Magento Go is an excellent turnkey ecommerce solution that is very competitive with leading SaaS providers. If a business is just getting started or thinking of changing ecommerce platforms, Magento Go is certainly worth a look.

Of course no platform is perfect, so merchants should always consider a few options before making a choice as important as which ecommerce solution to use.

It is also worth nothing that PayPal, a leader in online transactions, owns some 49 percent of Magento.

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Comments ( 7 )

I tried magento Go and thought to leave some comments. The moment you signup, you start experiencing the heavy dose of features. Softwares are not about features, they are about usability. Magento has definitely not considered this fact. Who is going to use their features anyways. 90% of its customer merely uses 10% of its features. In my view features rich shopping carts are crap and out of question while starting online store. Again The million dollar stimulus is a gimmick to attract customers, don’t get into this trap because you will have to pay next year and exiting from magento will be painful.

Magento SaaS version is a great helper for newbies.
We work tightly with Magento users worldwide and can see how fast Magento is growing and developing. It’s feature-rich solution for online business, that has great advantages.
MagneticOne has developed Store Manager for Magento (software that saves 2 hours each day on store management) and we can see by growing number of our clients how the popularity of Magento grows.

I’m going to give it a test drive. However, I cringe when I see "hosted" and "Saas" in the same sentence to describe a web based application. Not all that is hosted is SaaS, so be very careful with that. Also, I used to use Magento (self hosted) as my eCommerce platform a few years ago and had to switch to something that was more optimized for the needs of the store during Magento’s earlier development. So far, no complaints about Shopify, with exception to pricey add-ons.

I totally agree with @Neil. After signing up with their $25 / month plan I sent a ticket to them asking to be qualified into the $1 million stimulus program. You know what happened? They DELETED my ticket without responding in any way.

I paid $99 for SSL setup – that’s right, just for setup, you have to provide your own SSL purchased from a 3rd party. At first I thought it’s for the SSL for the first year, but it’s not. And I was told to send in the SSL certificate files so I attached it to the ticket and sent it to them. After 24 hours, no response. So I logged back in to see how it went. Again, you wouldn’t believe what happened.

They DELETED my ticket again without responding in any way AT ALL.

Then I tried to reach them at the collaboration community and got an reply saying that they sent an email to me at xxxx@xxxx.com but I never got back. Of course I didn’t got back, because that’s NOT MY EMAIL, not even close…..

Now someone tell me if this is the most ridiculous tech support or what……..

I just asked for a refund of the $99 I paid for my SSL setup which by the way is still hanging there, NOT installed. And they haven’t replied to my ticket after 5 hours.

SaaS is lovable for the people who has small and low customizable site. For higher customization the basic version is better. I can work in the local host and change the PHP and CSS file without any permission. But in web host like SaaS it is a difficult work and needs password more than once. But it makes work easily from the front-end for the normal and poor knowledge users. coupon code http://www.wantacode.com